Crashing Cars!

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Remembering all the bad luck with cars growing up. A story of constantly getting caught hiding all the dings dents and scratches and my dad's ability to always catch me!

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Episode Transcript

Unknown (00:14):
It's hard to speak your mind these days. voicing your
opinion is tough and a climatewhere you're either seen as an
ultra conservative or a bleedingheart liberal. But what about
our perspective? What about theGen X perspective? Hi, I'm Tony
a latchkey kid from the 80s and90s. Now I'm in my 40s wearing
cargo shorts, collecting StarWars figures and reminiscing

(00:35):
about the days before my firstcell phone. The jennex
perspective is for us cutssomewhere in between boomers and
Millennials are we see things abit differently? I'm tired of
staying silent. It's time torant, discuss, unload and
debate. Join Tony and his guestsas they tackle the topics of Pop
Culture, Sports, religion, andyes, even politics. If life's a

(00:57):
Rubik's Cube, we've got theexperience to tackle it. Welcome
to the Gen X perspective withTony Randazzo.
Hey, how's everybody doingtoday? So back for another

(01:18):
episode here. So I wason Friday,I washad to go pick up my my car
that had been in the shop forweeks and had to get a bunch of
work done on it. And as I wasdriving at home, I had had some
upgrades done to it as well gaveme a little more horsepower.
andI spent some time driving inand laughing as I was on my way

(01:43):
home. And it it really made methink about my first carwhen I
was back when I was 16 yearsold. So jumping back toback in
thelate 80s has it would be Iwasreally late 80s. I was, you
know, 16 years old. Freedommeant getting your driver's
license. And my whole world wasaround this. So it was probably

(02:07):
arguably since I sucked in highschool. Like the one thing that
I think I took seriously andstudied was getting my driver's
license. And the big deal aboutgoing down on my birthday,which
happened to land during theweek.And going and taking the
test and getting that driver'slicense. Prior to that I'd

(02:30):
gotten my learner's permit, andwas super stoked to be able to
go down and do this. Andandbefore I turned 16, my dadwent
out and bought a car that wasn'trunning to teach me how to work
on cars.It was at the time,which I still wish I owned this
car because I'm an idiot. Andwhen you're young you don't

(02:54):
realize things was a 1964 and ahalf,two plus two fastback
Mustangandwould be a hell of acar to own today by all
standards, even if it was notrestored fully. And I started
working on that car early. Imean, I was 1415 ish. I mean, it
was a solid year, year and ahalf before I ever got my

(03:17):
license and started working onthis car.And it really quickly
turned into awhat would bereferred to as a frame off
restoration totally tore apart.
And now everything off, down tobare metal and brought back once
I think my dad realized how bigthe project was,and how long it
was gonna take.Before my 16thbirthday, I got another car and

(03:41):
he and in my father beinga kidof the Hot Rod era himself
realized that I was going tokill myself on a car that was
souped up so he bought me another 1965 Mustang regular
coupe.A six cylinder straightsix. Now, if you put a tow ball
on that car, you could probablytow damn near anything. So it

(04:04):
had all sorts of torque but hadno horsepower at all. It looked
pretty, but it wasn't going towin any races. It wasn't even
going to try to win a race butabout the easiestengine to work
on it ran. It didn't need to betore apart. And I had my first
car 1965 Mustangstraight six.

(04:28):
NowI love that car, I put abrand new interior in it.I
learned how to work on themotor, I made every mistake on
the planet, I broke every bolton the block, you probably could
break, which is not good whenyou're dealing with motors. And
about the only thing I didn't doon that car myself or learn how

(04:52):
to do was, you know, tune thebrakes inand deal with the
transmission all that much. I'mguessing brakes because I was
even at 16 smart enough torealize that a brake job needed
to be done by somebody that knewhow to do it than a dumb kid
that was going to crash the carmore than likely at some point

(05:16):
anyway. And brakes were probablyimportant. Solong story short,
16 birthday, 16th birthday camearound, and lo and behold, I got
my license. And off, I was freeto roam the world and drive cars
and cause trouble, which I did.
AndI was probablynot the bestdriver, I'm going to say I wasif
I if I reminisce back on all thestupid shit I did driving cars,

(05:41):
and notfrom the perspective ofbeing outright dangerous to the
publicin a way that I shouldn'thave had my license but stupid
and distracted. So back then youwere distracted by tapes for
your tape player.or friends inthe car that were those were
your distractions, not texting,not all the electronics, it had

(06:05):
no electronics, you turned yourhigh beams on on the floor,
which Oh my god, that story ishilarious. So those of you who
are older,probably remember thelittle button that your left
foot would control that turnsyour high beams on and off.
Well. When I started working onthat car, I was crawling around

(06:29):
in there doing something and mydad was helping me in.And I said
Hey, Dad, what is this thing?
What is this? What is thislittle knob here button or what
is this. And he kind of had afunny look on his face. And he
said that's for your highbeamsfor your headlights. And I

(06:53):
thought that was about thefunniest thing in the whole
world and laughed my full headoff and jumped in the car and
started pressing it with myfoot. And I had only
experienced, you know, highbeams and regular cars at that
point we're up on the dash.
And,and he still tells thatstory to people to this day on

(07:14):
how that was the moment that herealized he wasgetting old.The
high beam button that you usedwith your foot andand I have a
ton of memories like that withmy dad and working on that car
and othersare getting caughttrying to cover up things that I
did to cars in our driveway. Soas I'm driving this 65 Mustang

(07:39):
around, I wasdoing dumb things,brushing to work or to high
school or whatever. And I livedout of that car, that car was
everything. I had my radio init. And I'm always putting new
speakers in it that you know,every time I could afford to go
down and buy something, I wouldadd something to it. Eventually

(08:03):
I had new carpet and new seatcovers and a new dash pad and
everytime I could affordsomething, we would order it out
of a catalog because there wasno interweb really at that
point. Sothe internet wasn't theplace to go. The catalog was
we're down at the shop, if youknew where the Mustang

(08:26):
restoration place was you godown and buy stuff over the
counter. So as I'm working onthis car, and mind you It didn't
run all the time. So my dad hada Chevy pickup truck that I
drove from time to time andsometimes longer stretches and
sometimes shorter depending onhow broke my car was.Not

(08:49):
probably because he wanted me todrive it. I don't think more
because we lived. Although wewere in Southern California, we
really lived in a rural areacalled Santiago Canyon. Actually
modjeska Canyon is where welived in that was the foothills
of Orange County. So my closestneighbor was a half a mile away

(09:13):
if you can believe that inCalifornia and this is my high
school years andSo it was a, itwas a pain in the butt for to
take me anywhere that meantsomebody had to drive me. So
there was an incentive for me toas long as I was kind of holding
it together and not failing allof my classes in high school and

(09:37):
being a punk. They would let medrive, especially to school
every day because it was a hugehassle.So he had this pickup
truck. It wasn'tanything.extravagant. At the
time, it was really just kind ofa basic pickup. And I would
drive that andfrom time to time,I would do stupid things. So the

(10:00):
one thing that I really rememberand I almost got away with isI
believe mom and dad were out oftown. And I was driving that
truck around and I want to say Ihad my best friend in the car
with me and maybe my girlfriendand there was a whole group of
us that we're going to go driveup Saddleback mountain, which

(10:24):
was kind of this really aFoothill, but this mountain in
Orange County, anybody fromthere would remember saddleback.
It's still there. It's probablyburned down a couple times, but
it's still there. And we weregoing to take the service roads
up. And it waswe were hangingout witha bunch of people some

(10:48):
older than me, probably mostsome, you know, my age friends.
And everybody had CB radios backthen was pretty popular still.
And we were going to take thesefire roads slash dirt roads up
to the top of Saddleback atnight and up at the top of
Saddleback mountain is a bunchof at the time TV repeaters and

(11:12):
antennas and blah, blah, blah.
And it was just somewhere to godrive up in the dirt in the
mountains and go mess around. Imean, we weren't up there
drinking beer part in but it wasjust growing up having fun being
stupid kids. AndI learneddriving on those dirt roads at a

(11:35):
very young age that unless youare in the front of the group,
you can't see shit.So we'redriving in a caravan. I mean,
maybe there was 10 of us, andwe're going up the hill
anddriving around and couldn'tsee anything because of the
dust. And it was dark. And wewere dumb. And I hit or drought

(11:58):
drove over a boulderwhichcollectively crushed a section
of the exhaust pipe in thistruck.So Oh my God, I get in a
panic. I didn't get stuck. Butit sounded like well, it sounded
like there was no exhaust leftin the truck. And it was loud
and there was no hiding it frommy dad who was going to be home

(12:22):
in like a day or two. I mean, itwas maybe that was like, we'll
call that a Saturday night andhe was going to be home. Sunday
night or Monday and I was gonnaget busted. Well, our neighbor
was a professional welder thatlived a couple houses down, and
I got at home and the nextmorning, I went over there in a

(12:47):
panic. And he was, God blesshim. He came over and brought
his welding truckand fixed mycutout the crushed mangled portion
of theexhaust and replaced itwith some more tubing and called
it good. And he said he wasn'tgoing to tell my dad. And off I
went and I didn't say anything.
And I wasI was good. So I'mgonna say a week, two weeks went

(13:11):
by, I'm in the clear, all good.Ihappened to be coming home from
work and at the time I wasworking part time at my parents
business. So at that particularday, for whatever reason.My dad
and Imet up at a light on theway home. He was in his car. I
was in the pickup truck, and hewas sitting a lot lower than I

(13:35):
was not that he could see underthe truck. But that is where he
was sitting. He could hear theexhaust. He heard an exhaust
leak. It was I never heard it. Icouldn't hear it. I didn't know
what I was listening to anyway,but this little pitter patter of
a exhaust leak that I couldtotally pick up now but back

(14:00):
then, dumb kid.Gethome.Everything's good.Getting
ready to go in the house and dadsays Hey, hold on a second.Start
that back up.I started backup.Andyou hear that snow? What
are you talking about? getnervous. Now I remember kind of
the sinking feeling that if hebent over and looked under that

(14:22):
caror under that truck andsawthe weld marks and whatever
that I was busted. And I forhalf a second thought, Okay,
well, he's in,you know, a pairof slacks or whatever he was
wearing at the time thinking hewasn't going to bend over and
look under the car. And you knowwhat being super old school the

(14:46):
way my dad was, he immediatelybent down. I don't know if he
set his briefcase down and knelton it, or what he did in the
driveway, but he bent down,looked under there and took one
look at that jumped up, lookedat me.And I just admitted what I
did, because at that point, heheknew I did something he just

(15:10):
didn't know how I fixed it. So Iadmitted that the neighbor Frank
came over and fix the exhaust.
And I think I got grounded. Idon't remember what happened to
me at that point. But he wasmore concerned about the
transmission, because when helooked under there, the

(15:33):
transmission the bottom oftransmission was banged up
wicked, and that's thetransmission plate. And that
truck wasn't made for offroading, so there was no
shielding or anything. And I puta couple big dents in the bottom
of that. Well, eventually, thatwas going to make the

(15:55):
transmission probably fall outor break not to get too
technical in this podcast aboutbeing a dumb ass. But he made me
take it to the training shop andprobably pay for it with my own
money. They checked it andeverything was good. I didn't do
any damage to anything, exceptfor one small exhaust leak that

(16:19):
Frank missed when he was sograciously helping me out, which
got me busted. And then Iremember my dad and Frank
talking and Frank just laughing.
And dad being really mad, atleast in front of me. And then
I'm sure they laughed theirasses off when I wasn't around.
But um, yeah, I got busted. Sonot too long after that. I was.

(16:42):
I want to say Junior, junioryear high school, graduation
day, last day of school, notgraduation day. But last day of
school, you know that you canremember. I love the last day of
school growing up always wasthat it was the weather we were
in Southern California. So thisamazing weather and it always

(17:06):
seemed so bright blue out andlike summer was here. The most
awesome feeling ever. Oh my god,I can't wait. And it was one of
those days were coming home. Iwas coming home in the truck,
same pickup truck. And I pulledinto a parking lot like a
convenience store to go get aSlurpee and a whatever. And came

(17:30):
out and jumped in the truck andput it in reversed and promptly
backed it up to a backed itinto, you know those big giant
concrete or steel poles that areon either side of a fire hydrant
in a parking lot so that youdon't hit the fire hydrant. Yep,
I slammed into one of those andtacos. The bumper in

(17:55):
horrible.Andso I went home. Now,if you're thinking of timing, so
this was probably three o'clockin the afternoon. I get the
truck home. Dad's not home fromwork yet. So I figure Okay, I
can get I can straighten thisbumper out and he won't notice.
So I think I took a piece ofwood or a piece of steel and I

(18:18):
know for sure I took asledgehammer and I'm trying to
bang this bumper out nobody'shome yet. I figured maybe I can
get this thing straightened outand dad won't catch me. And the
where we lived. You can seepeople the approach because
there was kind of this canyonarea in front of the house and

(18:41):
you could see the road on theother side. And my dad had a
convertible I think at thatpoint. Andhe was coming up that
hill and I didn't notice him buthe could hear me banging on the
back of that truck with a sledgehammer from kind of across this
canyon.And I noticed immediatelywhen he gunned his car because I

(19:05):
could hear the motor and lookedup and here he comes down the
driveway, jumps out of the car.
I'm standing there with asledgehammer covered in sweat
trying to fix this dumb assbumper on the first day of
summer andIt's ruined.Anothercouple 100 bucks out of my

(19:28):
allowance for savings or Iworked it off, or whatever I
did, I got grounded again.By thetime I graduated high school
between having my car in thattruck all in dad loves to tell
this story. So if you listen tothis podcast he's going to be
dying isall four quarter panelsthat are off four corners of

(19:52):
that truck. By the time Igraduated high school had been
replaced, or fixed from mebanging it into something,
running it into something.Idon't think I was ever hit ever.
But I hit everything with thattruck, it didn't matter. So the
bottom, so the exhaust thetrainee, so underneath, and all

(20:15):
four corners, I think both doorskins were replaced.So I got a
lesson in spending money onfixing things that I couldn't
fix myself. And, andoh, that wasafter I graduated high school.
Once I graduated high school, Iwas late for work one day, and
so I was rushing in my Mustang.
Andthey're not known forhandling really well their old

(20:39):
cars at the time. That was from1965. And were 1992 93 right in
there. just graduated highschool as working and crashed
into a tree when I lost controlwhile I was speeding on my way
to work late. So younger days,not good attaking care of cars.
And while I did take care ofthem, I was constantly paying to

(21:03):
fix them because I kept breakingthem. Which is really funny
because now I havevehicles atour work that our employees
drive. Not all the employeesdrive. But there is a handful of
employees that drive and I gocrazy.Now, when anything happens
to these cars, and it's totalkarma coming back to bite me,

(21:26):
for sureAnd because I was indrove my parents, my father so
utterly, absolutely nutswithwith all this crashing that I
did as a kid, and and fastforwarding tothis week, I had.
So I had my truck, anothertruck. Like they keep showing up
in my lifea diesel and had tohave some work done on it and

(21:50):
hada tuner package put in it sothat it would run a little bit
better. And I was talking tothis guy who's this crazy diesel
mechanic guywho races tractorsprofessionally and had this
amazing conversation with thisguy that does amazing work on
diesel engines. And,and he said,Well, you know,we could give you

(22:14):
a you know, we can tune it, youknow,100 more horsepower,or 50
more horsepower on a morehorsepower, 150 more horsepower.
And then it went all the way upfor 567 100 horsepower. And he
was telling me stories aboutsome of these younger guys would
come in and get these jobs doneon the trucks and then two weeks

(22:38):
later, they would bring themback in and say detune them they
were too much horsepower. And soI got I got a bit of an upgrade.
I didn't go crazy because thisis still my work truck, it needs
to be reliable, and it's not ahot rod andgot a little more pep
in that step. Andthis time ofyear, there's a lot of salt and

(23:03):
gravel on the road etc. AndIlaugh I had never laughed so
hard as I did when I ramped upthe gas on that truck and
started basically doing donutsin the road.A little better
driver now I didn't hit anythingbut cracked myself up all the
way home with my new my newfoundpickup truck that came back to

(23:26):
life again, and just had thelaugh and got me thinking about
all the other cars and how muchtime and how much I've learned
working on cars and that's kindof where the story from, from
dumb ass to adult.My wife at onepoint had asked me how do you
know how to do all this stuff?

(23:51):
And I don't remember what I wasworking on at the time but maybe
I was working on one of the carsor I was working on something in
the house or building something.
I don't remember what it was butjust how did you learn how to
how do you know how to dothis?And I think my dadso much
for being this guy thatalwaysknew the importance of being

(24:15):
self reliant and teachingyourself how to fix things and
do things not just pick up thephone and call a handyman or
whatever, you know, havesomebody else do it not deal
with it. So, you know,in my lifenow working at the winery, and
this little farming operationthat we have, that we work on,

(24:38):
you know, we have tractors, andwe have things and we have
equipment and hoses, and piping,and plumbing, and electrical and
all these things that need to beworked on fixed, modified,
changed all the time.And myexperiences and the people I've
been exposed to have taught mehow to do all these things over

(25:02):
time. And, you know, I know howto do a little bit of
everything.You know, jack of alltrades, master of none. And it's
because of my father who hascoincidentally teaching himself
how to do crazy masterwoodworking stuff in his garage
right now. And I'm kind of morehung up on thewelding and trying

(25:25):
to figure out how to weld betterthan just good enough to make it
hold together is kind of whereI'm at right now. So that's kind
of something I'm trying tofigure out and get better at.
Butit's been a reallyamazingadult life in regards to
being able to be self reliant.

(25:49):
And I think so many Gen Xers,you know, we kind of get this
slacker generation thing goingon, and, you know, just super
easygoing and whatever, man.ButI think what so many people
forget is we still come from ageneration of being self
reliant, and, and figuring itout and doing it ourselves.

(26:12):
Andthat is still superempowering to be able to say,you
know, we can do this, we cantake care of it, you know, yeah,
I can do that, you know, notbeing afraid, not just calling,
you know, Mr. handyman guy, orthe mechanic or whoever, you
know, obviously, there's alwaysa time and a place to call a

(26:35):
professional when you're workingon something, but to be able to,
you know, go fix whatever needsto be fixed.And be a little more
self reliant is a prettypowerful, prideful thing, at
least in my world. And I thinkis a direct result of kind of
the Gen X generation, you know,we're not afraid to get our

(26:59):
hands dirty. You know, we havethe stuff that's out there
anymore. We invented,althoughstill considered the slacker
generation, andyada, yada, yada,but we are also that eventful
generation. And that's a new funword. And also, people that are,
you know, determined. And, youknow, we saw our parents, the

(27:23):
boomersout there working theirfull heads off anddoing what
they were doing. And we werethose latchkey kids left home,
right. So I had to work on mycar. If it was out of self
survival. It was out of survivalif it was out of making sure it
kept running, which I had to doall the time with my Mustang to

(27:47):
keep it on the road. So I couldgo wherever I wanted to go.
That's what it was. But, youknow, it's a, I think,
reallyadmirable, and I respectso many people that just kind of
can roll up their sleeves andget it done when they need to.
And that's always been a fun andexciting thing in my life,

(28:10):
because I spend 99% of my timeevery day, doing that, fixing
it, modifying it, restoring it,cleaning it up, whatever it is,
spend a lot of time doing that.
Andjust last year, yearbeforethe localtown about 20
miles away Watertown, New York,used to have all these lamp
posts all over their older area.

(28:34):
And they were decommissioned Along time ago and kind of
upgraded pot metal or concreteor whatever they were, but these
were the old cast iron lamppoles with the ornamental lights
on top and I bought a couplethat had been sitting in this
guy's backyard for 20 years. Imean, literally in his backyard,

(28:58):
out in the weather for 20 years,the tops of the lamps.The lights
themselves he had in the garage,but the Poles were outside and
they were cast iron and I spentprobably a monthstripping paint
and sanding on this pole in thelamp in restoring the light
itself, getting rid of all theold electrical that was in it,

(29:22):
fixing all of the glass panelsthat were in it andAll the
fittings in it on the inside ofit were all brass and they had
all been painted. And if thething was a mess and spent a
couple months or a month,whatever it was working on this
thing, stripping it down,repainting it all. We rewiring

(29:45):
the electrical. And, ultimately,one we bought two of them.I did
one of them, and took thatlamppost. And I think that was
when my wife had asked me thequestion, most recently, how did
you learn how to work? alamppost Seriously? How do you
know what to do?We took thatlamppost and we put it in my

(30:08):
mother, we'd gotten it.Becausemy mom really wanted.Mary wanted
this lamppost in the in theroundabout in their driveway on
the house that they built on thefarm. And they were kind of on
this hunt for the perfect light.
And I found itin this is beforeshe passed away, so she knew we
had it, and we were going towork on it. And, and we ended up

(30:33):
putting it up kind of in herhonor, it was after she had
passed away, and we had gottento rewire it. And my dad just
made a comment about that lighta couple days ago, and said,
wow, you know, that thing isjust perfect. There, it throws
all sorts of light, and it looksbeautiful. And it's been out

(30:57):
there. And mind you, I was alittle nervous on that project.
We put it in last year beforewinter hit. And in the way the
wind blows through there, and Iwas thinking man that this top
of this thing's gonna blow off,or it's gonna just fall apart,
you know, whatever. And secondwinter in a row, and it's still

(31:21):
going strong, the light stilllights up, it still looks
beautiful. And I got anotherfeather in my cap something else
to restore. And it was really aneat, fun project that I kinda
ended up doing in honor of mymother, and stepmother and her
passing and putting it up. Andevery time I drive in there, and

(31:45):
it's turned on, or I can see itfrom the farm from the
winery.See it lit up and itreminds me of her. And it's kind
of a cool thing, that it'sthere. And so many people
comment on it, because it's,it's a unique light. And, and
people that grew up in the areaknow those lights, because they

(32:07):
were all over Watertown. Andthere's a similar version of
them up in Watertown now. So yousee it in, you know, the casual
observer wouldn't know thedifference necessarily, but it's
an original old, original light,old school style. So it's kind
of cool to know how to fix thatkind of stuff and put those

(32:32):
kinds of things in and make themwork, which is that was probably
by far the biggest thing I hadever worked on. And I might just
have an old barber pole from the50s or 60s sitting in a box on a
shelf that I'm getting ready tostart working on next. And I can

(32:52):
tell you how that one goes, Imight actually do a video on
that one and show the progressasas we restore it back to its
former glory. And it'll be a fundeal. Sothanks for listening. I
had a good time chatting withyou guys. And please leave your

(33:13):
comments.Facebook, Twitter,Instagram, wherever you want to
leave them. All my tags are inthe outro herewill talk to you
guys soon. It was great talkingto you and have a good one. Man.
You guys have a great day.

(33:35):
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(33:58):
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Don't forget to subscribe to theGen X perspective wherever you
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